Sunita Narain

On World Water Day, we release the report of the Second Anil Agarwal Dialogue: Excreta Does Matter. This two-day meeting attempted to join the dots between improper and inadequate sewage treatment and India's growing water crisis. It brought together about 500 people from NGOs, private sector, academia and the government to present and debate the challenges of urban sewage treatment and water supply. Please click here for the full report.

My local vegetable vendor sells ordinary lemons packed in plastic bags. It got me thinking if this is a sign of improving standards of food safety and hygiene. After all if we go to any supermarket in the rich and food-processed world, we will find food neatly packed so that there is no contamination through human hands. Then there is the army of food inspectors, who check everything from the processing plant to the supplies in restaurants.

Our health is not on anybody’s agenda. Or, we just don’t seem to make the connections between the growing burden of disease and the deteriorating condition of our environment. We don’t really believe the science, which tells us each passing day how toxins affect our bodies, leading to high rates of both morbidity and mortality. It is true that it is difficult to establish cause and effect, but we know more than enough to say that air pollution is today a leading cause of both disease and death in India and other parts of South Asia.

Maha Kumbh in Allahabad has perhaps no parallel in terms of the sheer size of the congregation. In less than two months over 100 million people are expected to come to this city, which sees the confluence of two rivers of India—the Ganga and the Yamuna. People come to worship on the banks of the Ganga. Even as they celebrate the river it seems they don’t see the river, but only the ritual.

How will solar energy be made to work in India? As I discussed in my previous article there are three key challenges. One, how will the country pay for solar energy in a situation where there is no money to pay for even the crashed costs of installation. Two, what is the best model for the distribution and use of this relatively expensive energy in a country where millions still live in the dark? Three, how should India combine the twin objectives of supply of clean energy and creation of domestic manufacturing capacities?

India’s solar power policy is now entering round two. And there is much that needs to be reviewed and reworked as the business of solar energy has seen massive turbulence in India as well as globally. In the first phase (2010 to 2013) of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) the target was to set up 1,000-2,000 MW of grid-based solar power in the country. By 2013, the country has indeed commissioned some 1,000 MW of solar power, but 700 MW of this target comes from the non-JNNSM state of Gujarat.

The last image of 2012 is protesters storming the bastion of Delhi, outraged at the brutal rape of a young girl and the culture of violence against women. This outburst by the educated middle class, many of them young women, was spontaneous as much as it was leaderless. But as we move to the next year, we need to think about the response of the government to this protest and others. We need to understand if the Indian state has any clue about what is going on under its nose—and feet.

The last image of 2012 is protesters storming the bastion of Delhi, outraged at the brutal rape of a young girl and the culture of violence against women. This outburst by the educated middle class, many of them young women, was spontaneous as much as it was leaderless. But as we move to the next year, we need to think about the response of the government to this protest and others. We need to understand if the Indian state has any clue about what is going on under its nose—and feet.

Liquor baron Ponty Chadha and his brother who were killed in a fratricide incident had another business not widely known. Ponty had recently acquired the concession to run public transport buses in Delhi. His company had won the bids for three clusters with a combined fleet of 600-odd vehicles. Now questions are being asked about who will run the business.